Top 5 Olympics Boxers of All Time

Olympic boxing's greatest fighters is rather like history's greatest basketball players as theirs so many to choose form, do we go with dominance like Mirkam or Wilt Chmaberlin managed, or the flair and draw that someone like Larry Bird or Magic Johnson had, and how can we forget the the player that made the Bulls a dominant team through the 90's Michael Jordan.

So with amateur boxing, admittedly our task is slightly different, in basketball we may have best point guard, where as in boxing we have the different weight classes. We have those that went onto great achievements as professionals, and we had those that never went professional, we have those that dominated one and failed at the other, and those that seemed average as amateurs who went on to take major honours as professionals.

Amateur boxing in it's current guise is fought under 3 rounds of 3 minutes (as of the start of 2009) so at the time of writing no major championship has been fought under this rule, the old format of 4 rounds of 2 minutes will therefore be what terms like "went the distance" relate to.

The sport is competed at the Olympics, the Commonwealth games, The world championships, The European Championships and the Pan Am games as far as major tournaments are concerned. And unlike professional boxing, there is more focus on technique and less focus on brute power and wars of attrition, with a points scoring system based on clean accurate punching, as opposed to the professional system of 10 points must.
A point is scored for a clear punch to the head or body with the white portion of the glove, though often (as seen in the 2008 Olympics) the scoring appears flawed is not incorrect with regards to body shots. A point is also scored for a knock down, which seems rather bizarre (in professional boxing a knock down would usually guarantee a 10-8 round, a larger advantage than a single point). 
The points system isn't the only way to win a contest, the referee can also stop a fight for one of several reasons, such as a fighter being outclassed, or being injured, much like in the professional ranks. 

The current points system came to the sport after the infamous 1988 Seoul Olympics where American fighter Roy Jones Junior was by all accounts robbed of a gold medal in his contest against Park Si-Hun in the light middleweight final. The fight resulted in 3 of the 5 judges for the contest being stripped and suspended as the Korean took the most infamous decision in amateur boxing history 3-2 despite Jones landing 50 punches more than Si-Hun.

So theres the history of how we've gotten to the present day, so lets start with those that missed out.

Donald Curry who was also known as the 'Lone Star Cobra' would undoubtedly have made the list had it not been for politics, with the USA boycotting the 1980 Olympics held in Moscow the 67KG class where Curry would likely have fought was won by Cuban Andres Aldama who'd won a silver medal at the previous Olympics, losing to Sugar Ray Leonard. Curry's amateur record was an amazing 400-4 (some reports say 400-6) and during 1980 he basically went on a gold sweep, winning National Golden Gloves, National AAU, and the World Cup at 147lbs. 
Curry would later turn pro and despite winning the IBF, WBC, WBA and Ring title at Welterweight (147lbs) he never fully reached what many expected and retired with a record of 34-6 after shock defeats by Lloyd Honeyghan and Rene Jacquot.
Curry will probably always be remember as the best amateur boxing never to win an Olympic title.

Another great fighter who never got to compete on the Olympic stage was Michael Bentt he has been regarded by some as the most celebrated fighter to never go to the Olympics, and was again thwarted by political wrangling. Despite being a 5 time USA Amateur boxing Champion and 4 time New York Golden gloves champion he was over looked for the 1988 Olympic's with Ray Mercer (the eventual finalist) taking the place. He was able to compete for his parents place of Origin in Jamaica but to do so he'd have to pass up his US citizenship, something he wasn't wanting to do, so instead he turned pro in the start of 1989 and became WBO world heavyweight champion via a first round TKO over Tommy “The Duke” Morrison (who many may know better as “Tommy Gunn” from Rocky V). Despite winning the title in his 12th fight he then went on to be stopped by “The Dancing Destroyer” Herbie Hide in the 7th round. Bentt retired after this loss, and created a record in doing so, he's had the shortest career of any Heavyweight champion with only 13 Professional career fights.

A third (and final for this article) fighter to have not been given his chance to become an Olympic great was recently retired Welshman Joe Calzaghe, who has often put his absence at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona down to politics. From his record (which is around 128 wins and 2 losses according to some sources) it's hard to work out why he wasn't selected for the team (Robin Reid the eventual Bronze medallist was selected ahead of Calzaghe). As an Amateur Calzaghe collected honours for fun, including 3 senior ABA titles and 4 schoolboy ABA titles, although his professional career would have out shone an Olympic medal of any colour, the fact politics got in the way is still a shame.

Anyway on to the top 5 Olympians of all time I feel there's 3 certainties amongst any knowledgeable boxing fan and they will take positions 1-3 and are pretty interchangeable and hard to split, they have an awful lot in common too as you'll find out when I get to them. However places for 4th and 5th are a lot more difficult.

5th Place goes to Guillermo Rigondeaux Ortíz who is the first Cuban on the list, he has since dropped the Ortiz from his name and goes by Guillermo Rigondeaux and has just signed a professional deal with Arena Box a German promotional company. Rigondeaux is often thought of as the best Cuban to have gone to the 2004 Athens Olympics and was one of Cuba's 5 gold medallists (from 8 medals altogether in the ring), the team included Olandier Solis, Mario Kindelan, Yourkis Gamboa and Yen Barthelemi.

Like several of his team mates this was his second Olympics and his second gold, though at the age of 24 for much of the Olympics it looked like he could well of equalled the record of the top 3, Instead he decided to defect in 2007, and finally turned pro earlier this year. Rigondeaux dominated the Bantamweight class during his amateur years, winning 2 Olympic golds (2000 and 2004), the Cuban national amateur champion at the weight every year from 2000-2006, 2 World amateur champion (2001 and 2005) 2 World Cup champion (2002 and 2005). Solidifying his position as one of the very best the Cubans have had to offer, whether his style will convert as well to the paid ranks is yet to be seen, but it's a going to be rather exiting to watch.

4th Is one of only 2 places in the top 5 not to be taken by a Cuban is taken by Henry William "Harry" Mallin of the United Kingdom, a rather bizarre choice you may think, and an awfully controversial one I'll admit. So I''ll need to give a good reason, firstly fighters like Frazier, Clay, Foreman, Lewis, Patterson were all ignored, they may have been amazing amateurs and go on to be brilliant professionals but this isn't about the 5 greatest amateurs it's about the 5 greatest boxers in Olympic history, I'm using the criteria that to be a great Olympian you need to come back and defend your title. I was also wary of going with 4 Cubans in the top 5. I was either going to go for Mallin or Jerzy Kulej from Poland who won gold in the 64 and 68 Olympics at Light Welterweight.

Mallin just edges him out due to remaining undefeated his whole career and Mallin was the first man to retain an Olympic boxing title after first winning it in the Antwerp games of 1920 he defended it successfully in 1924 in Paris. To add to this he was a 5 time ABA winner, trained his brother Frank to 5 ABA titles and was, until (now recently deceased) Chris Finnegan the only British boxer to win an Olympic Gold. 
Like the top 3 fighters here Mallin never turned professional and instead spent 37 years in the police force, a forgotten man amongst British boxing fans who would rather think of Henry Cooper and Frank Bruno instead of a true hero like Harry.

I've managed to split the top 3 (just) 3rd place goes to Felix Savon, who with the men in places 1 and 2 are the only men to win 3 Olympic golds. With Ray Mercer the 1988 Olympic champion turning professional it was again time for a Cuban domination and 1992 showed it, with 7 Gold Medals in total. Felix Savon took his first of 3 successive gold medals at the weight with a 14-1 win in the final against David Izonritei, after beating Danell Nicholson in the Quarter final and Arnold Vanderlyde in the Semi. Though the gold medal shouldn't have come as much of a surprise as Savon made it a hobby to collect bits of Gold. Prior to the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, he had already won 3 World Amateur championships (in 1986, 89 and 91) and he'd continue to dominate them after his first Olympic triumph winning a total of 6 (and had it not been for the Cuban walk out of the 1999 World Amateur Championships it's likely it'd have been 7), 3 Pan-am Golds (1987, 1991 and 1995) and 4 Central American and Caribbean Games Golds.

Savon would emulate Teófilo Stevenson's dominance of the weight during the 70's (see #2) by winning Gold in 1996 and 2000, which included wins against Sultan Ibragimov (a future professional Heavyweight Champions) and Luan Krasniqi. Savon like many Cubans never got a chance to display his skill on the professional scene as he was boxing under Castro's Cuban rule (unlike Rigondeaux he choose not to defect, like 1992 team mate Joel Casamayor).

Savon's rule at the division was dented slightly in his latter years by Olandier Solis (the 2004 Gold Medallist) who would beat Savon in the 1999 and 2000 Cuban championships, although Savon got the nod for the Olympics mainly to tie Teófilo Stevenson and Papp's record.

Who ever I put 2nd here I'll get slated for by half the readers and half will agree with me, but Teófilo Stevenson gets 2nd (leaving the 1st place obvious), there is no reason for one to be above the other or vice-versa and it's a toss of the coin.
Stevenson made his first impact in the 1971 Pan Am games winning a bronze medal after being beaten in the semi final by Duane Bobick the eventual Gold Medallist, this would be the last major loss for Stevenson for 11 years.
He went with the Cuban team in 1972 to the Munich Olympics in which he would meet Bobick and stop him in the third round in what must have been a sweet retribution for the misery of the Pan Am games the previous year, and from here on in he went undefeated and went on his own gold streak. Winning the World Amateur Championships in 1974 and 78 (as well as 1986 but the streak had been broken by Francis Damiani the Silver Medallist in 1982). Pan Am games golds in 1975 and 79 would be added during this streak as would the Olympic medals from 1976 and 1980. The biggest accolade during this time was probably the Val Barker Trophy for the 1972 boxer of the Olympic games.

Stevenson turned down huge sums of money to turn pro, in what was the greatest era of heavyweight boxing the world has seen with Muhammed Ali, George Foreman and Joe Frazier (all former gold medallists themselves) all holding the title at one point or another. As well as other greats of the era such as Ken Norton, Ron Lyle, Earnie Shavers and Larry Holmes. An alledged $5,000,000 was put up for him to face Ali in his debut for a world title, reminiscent of Pete Radamachers title shot at Floyd Patterson around 15 years earlier.

Had it not been for the soviet boycott of the 1984 games where the Gold was won by Tyrell Biggs Stevenson may well have become a 4 time gold medallist which would have made him the greatest Olympic boxer of all time. His final record of 280-22 is one of the greatest records of any amateur of all time, never matter one who competed at the highest level his whole career. 

Now if I've got to give a reason as to why Papp is 1st the only one I can use is that his golds were in 2 different weight classes (he's still the only man to actually do this) and from the five I've listed he's the only one (so far, as Rigoneaux hasn't yet fought as a professional) to have competed professionally. 

Papp was from communist lead Hungary, much like the Castro lead Cuba that deprived the world of Savon and Stevenson turning, Papp's professional career was cut short by politics and he had a forced retirement with a professional record of 27-0-2 with 15 KO wins. 
However it's his Olympic achievements we care about which started in 1948 with his middleweight gold medal victory over John Wright who was fighting at home (England). He repeated the same feat in 1952 beating Theunis Jacobus Van Schalkwyk for the light middleweight gold.

1956's Olympics held in Melbourne brought an unheralded third gold medal for Papp who beat Jose Torres from the USA who would later go on to be crowned a professional Light Heavyweight champion at the hands of Angelo Dundee. Sadly for the world of boxing Torres has died in recent weeks.

Papp also managed to collect European titles in 1959 (in Oslo) and in 1951 (Milan) and middleweight and light middleweight respectively. 

After racking up an unbelievable 301-12-6 record he turned professional in 1957 and by his retirement 7 years later he'd only faced 1 guy with a losing record (Jean Ruellet who was Papp's 7th opponent had a record of 41-44-12). Papp would go on to take the European Middleweight title in his 20th fight, which he defended until his retirement, when the Hungarian government refused to let him fight for the world title as they claimed it was for financial gain, and therefore broke socialist principles.

So there you have it, the top 5 Olympic boxers of all time.